Undoubtedly, many companies see a cash cow in the Internet and are trying to co-opt it with the idea of charging those who will come after. When you scratch the surface of the furor surrounding our advertising, that's really what it's all about. Those who were already poised to take over the Internet weren't counting on our coming in and challenging their self-proclaimed supremacy. We've predicted in our book that the opportunities won't always be as low cost as they are now. That's why we've urged our readers to move immediately to involve themselves with the Internet.
david_freedman@incmag.com Can Internet advertising help level the playing field between large and small companies, or are there ways that large companies can press their advantages on the Internet?
lcanter@cyber.sell.com The most exciting thing about Internet advertising is the ability it gives smaller businesses to compete effectively. And I do believe the larger companies are unhappy about that. Probably, much of the push to use only Web sites and "passive" methods of advertising comes from the realization that the cost of entry is greater, making it more difficult for the small business.
david_freedman@incmag.com Why do you believe USENET, rather than the Web, is the way to go for small-business advertising? Cost is one reason. Is there another? For people who don't have the stomach to put up with all the flaming, do you have any tips for treading more lightly than you guys did? Or do you feel it's only worth it to go whole hog and get your message out in a no-nonsense way anywhere and everywhere?
lcanter@cyber.sell.com At the moment, there is little evidence that Web advertising by itself is particularly effective. One of the main problems, of course, is that few people have full Web access. Without question, USENET sales are higher. The Web does offer more exciting possibilities, of course, and the environment is changing daily. As more people are able to access the Web graphically, as communication lines improve so that the download time of graphics or multimedia comes down to something reasonable, my answer may change. Probably the Web is the direction we'll all take in the future. At the moment, however, USENET seems to be more effective. And, of course, not only is it more expensive and technically involved to put up a Web server, but you are also faced with the problem of how others will find you. That is not a problem with USENET.
We haven't necessarily advocated sending the message out "everywhere," though that was certainly successful with the green-card lottery. For the Cybersell clients, we have been limiting our postings to groups of general interest, those designated as "misc," those called "forsale" and "marketplace," and those specifically related to the subject at hand. Typically, this totals between 200 and 300 groups. The USENET is best used to give a short message directing the reader to go elsewhere for more information, such as a Web site.
david_freedman@incmag.com What's your take on "cancelbots"? Obnoxious, illegal as an infringement of free speech, or all's fair in love and war?
msiegel@cyber.sell.com Obnoxious is not the real issue with cancelbots. Infringement of speech and illegal activities are. With respect to legality, cancelbots used against advertising are actionable in civil court as tortious interference with business or worse. Criminal liability under vandalism statutes is also likely. Then there is the matter of forgery and impersonation. For a message to be canceled, the cancelbot has to pretend to be the person who initially posted the message.
The freedom of speech issue is equally troubling. Does anyone want a situation in which a single individual can control speech on the Internet just because he wants to? How would you like it, personally, if you could be silenced by a 26-year-old hippie megalomaniac from Norway? You wouldn't. Neither would anybody else.
Anyone who dismisses this as the naughty prank of irresponsible but harmless college kids doesn't understand. The cancelbot ploy could easily be used by one business to stop another. In fact, there is an excellent chance that is exactly what happened to us.
In addition, why should anyone presume the cancelbots are going to limit themselves? What happens when they expand their concerns to ideas they simply don't like? The danger of self-styled dictators controlling speech is too obvious to discuss. All you need to do is pick up a history book to understand how evil this is. Unless cancelbots are stopped, the Internet is not the glorious future of communication but a potential force for widespread repression.
david_freedman@incmag.com From your conversations with professionals and businesspeople who are good candidates for selling on the Internet, do more than a small minority of them seem enthusiastic about it? For those who don't, is the problem that they haven't grasped the Internet or that they're too narrow-minded about how to market?
msiegel@cyber.sell.com In spite of any fear of reprisals, the folks we meet are not at all narrow-minded about Internet marketing. They want to throw themselves into it, full speed ahead.
The Internet offers all kinds of opportunities, especially possibilities for starting new businesses. That is because you can try out the viability of new products and services on a shoestring marketing budget. A word of warning, though. The Internet is just another way of reaching people, another communications medium. It's not marketing magic. It won't turn an otherwise unsaleable product into a winner.
One of the virtues of Internet marketing is that you can pitch your product or service more or less directly to the masses.
david_freedman@incmag.com But doesn't that make for a greater danger of fraud and deception, in that the Internet doesn't provide for the kind of at least minimal screening that television, magazines, newspapers, and most other conventional media provide?
msiegel@cyber.sell.com It has been our experience that conventional media such as television and magazines do so little screening that there really is no appreciable protection for the consumer. No medium acts as a guarantor for the public. Caveat emptor largely prevails across the board, until and unless someone commits a crime such as fraud. Then the FTC and FCC do in fact step in on the Internet as they would in any other type of situation. In fact, that happened recently in a fairly widely publicized case in which the FTC filed charges against an individual who was advertising a credit- restoration system that was deemed illegal.
As we've been trying to emphasize throughout, there's no great difference between communicating through the computer and other media. That's why we believe the FCC should officially take control of the Internet, just as it has all other communication media. The Internet is too big and powerful to go without official regulation. The public needs to be protected, and we have no doubt it will be. In a very short time, the dust will settle, and the mainstreaming of the Internet will be complete.
